The Virgin's Revenge (20 page)

He’s a commitment-phobe.

He’s only doing what he was told.

You still have no idea what Locke is holding over him…

Most of the time, she could ignore those first two. Lots of people avoided commitment…until they didn’t. And she seriously doubted Locke would tell Cole to turn her into his panting sex slave in training. It was almost to the point where she needed to change her panties every time she heard his voice now. He kissed her—slow, devastating explorations of her lips and neck and ears, his hands learning every inch of her back and hips. And he let her explore him, let her trace the muscles and textures of his chest, arms and hands. But it never went further. The second she made any effort to push past his invisible line…he escaped. Literally set her back and all but ran for the door.

The temptation to try the handcuff trick on his wrist for real was getting overwhelming.

Or maybe that crowbar she’d mentioned to Susie.

Definitely the crowbar.

For two months, she’d been patient. She’d gone along with his crawling pace because being with him made her happy. Too happy. Even when they did nothing but eat together. She could be quiet with him. So quiet and easy that it would be tempting to forget how all of it had come about.

But like a rock in her shoe, she just couldn’t get past it.

What did Locke have that had turned her sometimes-distant friend into an excruciatingly patient lover? She needed to know. Cole wasn’t with her because he wanted to be. Because he chose to be. The more time she spent with him, the more she fell under the spell of his gaze, his seduction, his caring and his friendship, the sharper that rock became. If she didn’t put an end to this soon, it was going to cut, and she didn’t know if she could survive that kind of wound.

“Uh-oh, what put that look on your face?”

Amanda jolted out of her thoughts, finding herself pinioned by a very curious, sloe-eyed stare from Cass. “What look?”

“The one that went from delirious to miserable in zero-point-three seconds. And don’t try to tell me it had anything to do with pizza either. I know man trouble when I see it.”

Cass probably did. The whole town was well aware of Cass’s unhappy first relationship with Luke Hanson. The guy had left her at the altar with a note claiming he was gay. And that was after years of an on-again, off-again relationship in the first place. In the end, Cass had married Burke, her lifelong best friend, instead. If the rumors were true, that hadn’t been the easiest road to the altar either, though everyone in town knew Burke was possibly the most devoted husband on the planet. Cranky, but devoted.

“Not trouble, exactly,” she admitted. She didn’t know Cass nearly well enough to divulge the whole convoluted mess, but the other woman had a definite understanding of men making her crazy. “Just…frustration, I guess.”

“Cole, huh?” Cass’s eyes glittered with mirth. “I wouldn’t have taken him as a guy big on living with…frustration.”

Amanda leaned on her other hand and smiled. No one would, if they’d only known the slicker, confident, post-high school Cole, who had grown into a masculinity that was rivaled only by his keen intelligence. Women enjoyed talking to him, and since they had started coming his way in college, he enjoyed letting them. She’d hated every single one she had the misfortune to see him with. None of
them
had looked…frustrated. “Neither had I.”

He practically dragged himself out her door every time he left her. Which was about the only satisfaction she’d had in that quarter. She’d thought after all these weeks, after the nights of long, slow kisses and longer conversations, she would have worn him down. Just last night, she’d thought she finally had him when they fell asleep together on the couch. She’d woken up warm and relaxed, their legs tangled and Cole too close to resist.

She’d kissed him gently, not wanting to wake him too fast. When he’d responded sleepily, she’d been pleased. When his hands had slid over her breasts, his thumbs stroking her nipples, she’d been breathless, excited. And when he moved over her, fitting his hips to hers, his kisses turning from dreamy sweet to fiery inferno in a heartbeat, she went downright ecstatic.

Until she’d undone his zipper, her hand finding the thick length of him beneath his briefs.

He’d groaned into her mouth—a sound she was guaranteed not to forget in this life or possibly the next five—his rigid sex hot and pulsing in her hold, and then, all of a sudden, he’d sprung away from her. He choked on some kind of explanation. If you could call the torrent of words—most of which she had yet to identify—an explanation. There were a lot of
I
’s and
you
’s involved. A couple of
we
’s. Then he was gone, promising to bring dinner after he finished his work.

Of course, that could be tonight…or next year. Cole’s work could suck him in for weeks at a time if he let it. She just had a feeling that work had very little to do with why he’d run for his life in the middle of the night.

“I didn’t realize you knew Cole very well,” she said, just to get away from her own confused thoughts.

“Well, he’s a year younger than me, so we didn’t cross paths as much in school,” Cass admitted. “He became more of a friend from seeing him at Burke’s shop all the time.”

Oh, yeah. The only obsession he had other than computers—his bike.

“Cross paths?” That was the polite way of putting it. “You mean you were busy with the jocks and didn’t have time for quadratic equations? I’m shocked!”

Cass laughed. “In my defense, I actually
was
the jock.”

“It’s okay, I understand the AV Club was really selective back then. If you had clear skin, boobs or wore deodorant, you probably wouldn’t make it in.”

“Damn, I knew all that powder-freshness was holding me back.” They were practically in tears for a few minutes. “Oh my God, does he know you say these things about him?”

“A man as smart as Cole doesn’t go around speaking Klingon and Elvish without expecting to be mocked mercilessly. I swear, it’s like he dares people to do it.”

Cass gasped suddenly, as if she just realized something. “Is that why he named his bike Mellon? Is that Klingon too?”

Amanda rolled her eyes. “No, it means ‘friend’ in Elvish. He thought he was so cool when the
Lord of The Rings
movies came out and people recognized the design job on the bike tank.” Stony gray with the illuminated script and swirls so particular to his favorite books.

“Burke and I just thought he’d misspelled the fruit and didn’t have the heart to tell him.”

Amanda dropped her head in her hand. “I
told
him that’s what people would think.”

“So you
understand
all his weird stuff?”

“Oh, no. No, no, no. Not the math.” The equations he could do in his head made her eyes cross. “Calculus and I were never friends, but I love reading, so the books were easy for me. The guys were always watching sci-fi shows and reruns. It rubs off whether you like it or not.” But she had
loved
it. Loved knowing the inside jokes. Loved being part of that goofy camaraderie. Especially since the elder twins couldn’t grasp a second language, definitely not a fake one, to save their lives. That had been her one thing with Cole that no one else had ever been a part of.

She cleared her throat and put on her best Shakespearian pose. “
Heghlu’meH QaQ jajvam!
”

Cass’s eyes went wide. “What the hell does that mean?”

“
Today is a good day to die
.” Amanda bowed theatrically, which set Cass back to laughing. “It’s a Klingon saying, especially as they go into battle.”

“Oh my God, you two are so perfect for each other!”

“What?” Amanda blinked, her laughter fading bit by bit. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on,” Cass pushed her at her hand. “It’s adorable. Like…nerds in love!”

Love? Luckily, Cass was too busy laughing to realize anything was wrong. That Amanda had put on the smile she always wore when thoughts were too painful. It hurt, to be so close to what she’d spent so long dreaming of and knowing she wasn’t going to be able to keep it.

You could
, her heart whispered.
You don’t have to walk away from him…

She could also just confront him. Tell him what she knew about his agreement with Locke, but she just couldn’t seem to do that. She knew why too.

Because the same way she hadn’t been able to pull off seducing him, she couldn’t turn her heart off and tell it to stop loving him. It had starved for him for so long and now that she had him, his support and his touch, his attention, she didn’t want it to stop. She was in too deep.

“Are you crying?”

Amanda looked up at Cass, startled. The other woman had sobered, looking at her strangely. As if maybe she recognized something. Rather than deal with that, Amanda wiped at her cheeks and found thin trails of tears.

“I know we don’t know each other too well, but I do have a little bit of experience with blockheads. Maybe I can help?”

Amanda knew her smile was watery. “You ever get in over your head doing something that should have been simple, but suddenly it’s not?”

“I hope you ordered a lot of pizza.” Cass rubbed her belly, the glint in her eyes definitely determined. “Because
this
is going to take a while…”

Chapter Eleven

You can do this. Don’t take no for an answer. Tonight, Cole Engstrom will be yours.

Amanda looked at herself in the mirror one last time. She’d taken special care with her makeup after Cole’s phone call that he’d be coming by. Talking with Cass had been helpful. Empowering. A wee bit confusing, but overall, Amanda figured she had the gist. Turning a friend into a lover took a little more courage than turning a
date
into a lover. Dates had no real expectations, but friends… Friends had more to lose. Friends knew you too well.

“You can’t just wait for him to make the changes in the relationship,” Cass had said, her face so serious Amanda hadn’t been able to look away. “If you truly want Cole, you’re going to have to fight for him. Don’t take no for an answer. Make him see that you want more from him, that to you, it’s worth the risk. Otherwise, you two are going to dance around what could have been until it’s totally gone.”

Amanda took a deep sigh, holding her hand over her stomach. The butterflies in there were flying around so much she wasn’t sure if she was nervous or sick. But she looked good, that much she had to admit.

Her hair was loose, the way he seemed to like it, though she made an effort to fluff the front in hopes of having some volume. Pointless hope, but she tried. She wore a light pink, short-sleeved cashmere sweater set and a denim skirt that just kissed her knees. The sweater, a gift from Susie on her last birthday, was so soft she had to stop her fingers from petting her own hem. The skirt showed her legs, invited touching, but didn’t exactly scream, “I’m not wearing underwear!” According to Cass, the problems she’d kept having with her seductions weren’t that she wasn’t seductive, just that she was pushing too hard. Too much, too fast. Throw in her nerves, and it was kind of a miracle she hadn’t maimed the poor man with a golf club last time.

“
Let
it happen,” Cass had coached. “Don’t
make
it happen. Trust me, that way just never works.” Advice Amanda wanted to take to heart as much as possible. “Subtle hints and actions,” Cass had added. “Men freak out when you change things too quick, you know that.”

She did. She just wished she’d remembered it before she started her bid for separation from Locke.

Finally, she reminded herself of Cass’s last important piece of advice. “Once you have his attention, add ever-increasing pressure on his senses. Like a good kiss, until you take his breath away.”

Amanda really liked the idea of taking Cole’s breath away.

Very carefully, she used long fireplace matches to light the oversized candles she’d placed around her bedroom earlier. Five of them, each in matching oversized glass vases that turned them into romantic lanterns while protecting the flames from escaping. They could burn for hours unattended, which was exactly what she needed. The only flame she planned on attending was Cole’s.

The doorbell rang, tripping her heartbeat. A last smoothing of her skirt and she left her bedroom to get the door.

Cole was facing the street when she pulled it open, his dark hair reflecting the inside light like bird wings and that leather jacket of his catching it in a textured gleam.

“Cole?” she asked, worrying a bit when he didn’t immediately turn.

“Yeah,” he sighed, finally shifting to smile at her.

“You all right?” He wasn’t, she could tell. Nothing stood out, exactly. His shoulders weren’t rigid, but she could feel tension coming off him. And though his smile was real, his pleasure in seeing her warming a still-nervous part of her heart, she sensed strain. Deep strain.

“I’m fine.” But he wasn’t. Not even a little bit.

She took his hand, pulling him into the house. “Come on inside and tell me about it.”

“There’s not a lot to tell.”

“Then it won’t take long, will it?” She closed the door behind him, watching with ridiculous fascination as he shrugged out of his jacket. What was it about his lean strength that had her so entranced she could just watch him move all day long? She took it, setting it on the coat rack blindly. “You want to sit on the couch or go straight to the table?”

Cole looked at the couch for a long second. Was he remembering what had happened between them there? Because she had been, her hands tingling every time she thought about how he’d felt in her palm. Hot, almost burning, but so silky over the steely hardness…

“Table,” he said firmly, stalking through the living room and through the curved arch into the kitchenette. Amanda had to bite her lips not to laugh as she followed him. You’d think she was going to tackle him to the ground and disabuse him of his virtue.

“We can talk over dinner. I made your favorite.”